Why you’ll never get your guitar totally in tune.
(Also applies to ukuleles and bass guitars)
By Mark Baxter
In this article:
5 things you can do to make your guitar sound more in tune
2 reasons your guitar will never be totally in tune
Forget about it and enjoy making music!
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get my fretted instruments to sound in tune. I’ve found there are things we can do to improve intonation but, ultimately, the laws of physics will not allow us to be totally harmonious.
5 things you can do to make your guitar sound more in tune
2 reasons your guitar will never be totally in tune
Forget about it and enjoy making music!
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get my fretted instruments to sound in tune. I’ve found there are things we can do to improve intonation but, ultimately, the laws of physics will not allow us to be totally harmonious.
5 things you can do to make your guitar sound more in tune
1. Get your instrument set up well. This probably means taking it to a pro guitar repair person.
A note about ukuleles. All the problems of setting-up a guitar or bass are exacerbated in a ukulele. This is due to the shorter length of the strings. Any small imperfection in the nut, saddle or frets results in more intonation difficulties than on a guitar. Inharmonicity may also play a role, but more of that later…
2. Put on a new set of strings. As strings wear, they become less perfectly cylindrical along their length. Repeated pressing against the frets results in compression or wear of the string at those points. Also, dirt and corrosion build-up adds mass to parts of the string. It’s difficult to tune old and worn strings by ear. Even electronic tuners find it hard to settle on a pitch. Technically, I suppose the reason is that the overtones of the notes become disrupted and out-of-tune with the fundamentals. Again, I’ll explain more about fundamentals and overtones a little later…
3. Position your capo with care. If you tune up the open strings, then use a capo, some of the open capo-ed strings will inevitably be a little out of tune. The capo may be exerting more pressure on the bass strings or treble strings, making them too sharp. Three remedies work for me:
4. Have a light touch. Some players grip the strings excessively hard and deflect them either downwards or inwards between the frets. This sharpens the pitch.
5. Set your pickups at a good height. For electric instruments, see individual pickup manufacturers’ guidelines for setting pickup height. If pickups are too close to the strings, the magnetic pole pieces can affect a string’s natural vibration patterns and produce intonation problems. If too far away, the pickups lose volume and tone.
- Frets should be crowned so that only a thin ridge at the top of each fret is in contact with the string. If a fret is worn or has been poorly crowned, notes will play sharp.
- Saddles may need adjusting to improve intonation. This is easier on most electric guitars than it is on acoustic instruments: individual saddles for each string can be moved backwards and forwards easily. Ideally, the distance between the nut and the 12th fret and the 12th fret and the saddle should be exactly the same.
- Nut slots should be low enough so that fretted notes play in tune after tuning the open strings. They should be high enough so that open strings don’t buzz on the first fret. It’s a precision job!
A note about ukuleles. All the problems of setting-up a guitar or bass are exacerbated in a ukulele. This is due to the shorter length of the strings. Any small imperfection in the nut, saddle or frets results in more intonation difficulties than on a guitar. Inharmonicity may also play a role, but more of that later…
2. Put on a new set of strings. As strings wear, they become less perfectly cylindrical along their length. Repeated pressing against the frets results in compression or wear of the string at those points. Also, dirt and corrosion build-up adds mass to parts of the string. It’s difficult to tune old and worn strings by ear. Even electronic tuners find it hard to settle on a pitch. Technically, I suppose the reason is that the overtones of the notes become disrupted and out-of-tune with the fundamentals. Again, I’ll explain more about fundamentals and overtones a little later…
3. Position your capo with care. If you tune up the open strings, then use a capo, some of the open capo-ed strings will inevitably be a little out of tune. The capo may be exerting more pressure on the bass strings or treble strings, making them too sharp. Three remedies work for me:
- Use a capo with adjustable tension, and reduce the tension so that it grips the neck as little as possible.
- Place the capo very close behind the fret and totally parallel to the fret.
- Fine-tune after putting the capo on.
4. Have a light touch. Some players grip the strings excessively hard and deflect them either downwards or inwards between the frets. This sharpens the pitch.
5. Set your pickups at a good height. For electric instruments, see individual pickup manufacturers’ guidelines for setting pickup height. If pickups are too close to the strings, the magnetic pole pieces can affect a string’s natural vibration patterns and produce intonation problems. If too far away, the pickups lose volume and tone.
2 reasons your guitar will never be totally in tune
1. Twelve-tone equal-temperament tuning. For the last approximately 200 years, Western music has used a tuning system which divides the octave into 12 equally-spaced pitches: the notes of the chromatic scale. It’s called 12-tone equal-temperament, or 12TET for short. The vast majority of our Western music today is played using 12TET tuning (let’s say 99.9% of it), whether it be jazz, reggae, rock, pop, orchestral music, EDM, country, blues, metal, folk…
The pros and cons of 12TET. The major benefit of 12TET is that it allows musicians to play chord changes in any key. We can even change to another key mid-song (modulation.) Complex harmonies are possible. However, a compromise has been made to allow for all this harmonic flexibility: the notes in the 12TET system are slightly out-of-tune with each other. Natural, pure, perfectly in-tune combinations of notes do not fit neatly into the equal division of the octave. So, harmonic flexibility comes at the expense of precise intonation. Western music is all a little out-of-tune.
All instruments used in Western music conform to 12TET. Guitars, ukuleles, bass guitars, saxophones, pianos, etc. are all built and tuned to 12TET. We sing in 12TET too. At least we do if we want to fit in with the instruments which accompany us. And, other non-fixed pitch instruments, such as violins and cellos, must also similarly conform to 12TET to play modern Western music in tune with the other instruments.
Comparing 12TET to other tuning systems
It can take our Western ears a while to get used to these different tuning systems and to start to appreciate the music performed in them.
2. Inharmonicity. Here is my reading of this acoustic phenomenon:
A musical note is NOT just a note. A note is made up of the main pitch (the fundamental) and other higher-pitched and less-loud notes which color the sound and which are in harmony with the fundamental (overtones.) For example, a C note’s fundamental is C. It’s overtones include G, E and Bb, and other C’s (notes of the harmonic series.)
The overtones of notes in the higher-frequency (treble) octaves and the lower-frequency (bass) octaves can deviate from being totally in tune with their fundamentals though. This is inharmonicity. Piano tuners alter the tuning of the higher and lower octaves to compensate for inharmonicity (so-called stretched piano tuning.) They compromise the fundamentals a little to get the overtones more in tune with notes in the middle octaves.
Length of string affects inharmonicity; piano tuners have a hard time getting the relatively short bass strings of an upright piano in tune, for example.
I’ve experienced inharmonicity in the lowest notes of a guitar and bass guitar. After tuning with an electronic tuner, notes can sound sharper than they should. And, perhaps inharmonicity accounts for some of the difficulty of getting the high-pitched notes of a uke to sound in tune too.
The pros and cons of 12TET. The major benefit of 12TET is that it allows musicians to play chord changes in any key. We can even change to another key mid-song (modulation.) Complex harmonies are possible. However, a compromise has been made to allow for all this harmonic flexibility: the notes in the 12TET system are slightly out-of-tune with each other. Natural, pure, perfectly in-tune combinations of notes do not fit neatly into the equal division of the octave. So, harmonic flexibility comes at the expense of precise intonation. Western music is all a little out-of-tune.
All instruments used in Western music conform to 12TET. Guitars, ukuleles, bass guitars, saxophones, pianos, etc. are all built and tuned to 12TET. We sing in 12TET too. At least we do if we want to fit in with the instruments which accompany us. And, other non-fixed pitch instruments, such as violins and cellos, must also similarly conform to 12TET to play modern Western music in tune with the other instruments.
Comparing 12TET to other tuning systems
- Indian classical music does not have chord changes. Instead, the melody is played over a continuous and unchanging drone; usually a fifth chord. Musicians can then precisely tune their melody notes to this drone. There is not an equal spacing of notes throughout the octave like there is in 12TET.
- Pythagorean tuning, Well-temperament and Meantone tuning were common in Europe before 12TET became the standard. They also divide the octave into 12 notes, but the notes are not spaced equally throughout the octave. They are unequal temperaments. This means that only some keys are useable; the unusable ones sound really out-of-tune. Bach and Mozart composed in unequal temperaments.
- Other equal temperament systems which divide the octave into different amounts of equally-spaced notes, for example, 19TET or 31TET.
It can take our Western ears a while to get used to these different tuning systems and to start to appreciate the music performed in them.
2. Inharmonicity. Here is my reading of this acoustic phenomenon:
A musical note is NOT just a note. A note is made up of the main pitch (the fundamental) and other higher-pitched and less-loud notes which color the sound and which are in harmony with the fundamental (overtones.) For example, a C note’s fundamental is C. It’s overtones include G, E and Bb, and other C’s (notes of the harmonic series.)
The overtones of notes in the higher-frequency (treble) octaves and the lower-frequency (bass) octaves can deviate from being totally in tune with their fundamentals though. This is inharmonicity. Piano tuners alter the tuning of the higher and lower octaves to compensate for inharmonicity (so-called stretched piano tuning.) They compromise the fundamentals a little to get the overtones more in tune with notes in the middle octaves.
Length of string affects inharmonicity; piano tuners have a hard time getting the relatively short bass strings of an upright piano in tune, for example.
I’ve experienced inharmonicity in the lowest notes of a guitar and bass guitar. After tuning with an electronic tuner, notes can sound sharper than they should. And, perhaps inharmonicity accounts for some of the difficulty of getting the high-pitched notes of a uke to sound in tune too.
Forget about it and enjoy making music
So, there are things we can do to get our guitars, ukes and bass guitars more in tune but, ultimately, modern Western music’s use of harmony and the extremes of pitch mean we’ll never be totally in tune.
That’s useful information to know, but it’s not essential. It’s interesting that many great musicians were not aware of the existence of our compromised tuning system or inharmonicity, and they got along just fine. However, this knowledge may save you some frustration. I remember reading about Jimi Hendrix fiddling with his tuning pegs before shows, annoyed that he couldn’t get his guitar in tune. And, Ross Duffin, in his book How equal-temperament ruined harmony tells an anecdote about renowned conductor Christophe von Dohnányi being frustrated with two chords at the start of Beethoven‘s ninth. Whatever he and his musicians tried, he couldn’t get those chords in tune to his satisfaction. Presumably, Hendrix and von Dohnányi did not know they were fighting a losing battle.
Of course, it goes without saying that a lot of beautiful and powerful music has been produced within 12TET, despite it’s slightly flawed intonation. There are many expressive elements which allow for the creation of great music in any tuning system: dynamics, phrasing and groove, for example. It doesn’t have to be perfectly in tune too. Our Western ears can tolerate a small degree of out-of-tune-ness. We are used to it because of our life-long immersion in 12TET.
Lastly, I just mention that the more you focus on intonation, the worse it gets! So, my advice is to have a well-set-up guitar with some fresh strings, tune up as best you can and enjoy playing.
Mark Baxter, Brussels, January 2018 ©
That’s useful information to know, but it’s not essential. It’s interesting that many great musicians were not aware of the existence of our compromised tuning system or inharmonicity, and they got along just fine. However, this knowledge may save you some frustration. I remember reading about Jimi Hendrix fiddling with his tuning pegs before shows, annoyed that he couldn’t get his guitar in tune. And, Ross Duffin, in his book How equal-temperament ruined harmony tells an anecdote about renowned conductor Christophe von Dohnányi being frustrated with two chords at the start of Beethoven‘s ninth. Whatever he and his musicians tried, he couldn’t get those chords in tune to his satisfaction. Presumably, Hendrix and von Dohnányi did not know they were fighting a losing battle.
Of course, it goes without saying that a lot of beautiful and powerful music has been produced within 12TET, despite it’s slightly flawed intonation. There are many expressive elements which allow for the creation of great music in any tuning system: dynamics, phrasing and groove, for example. It doesn’t have to be perfectly in tune too. Our Western ears can tolerate a small degree of out-of-tune-ness. We are used to it because of our life-long immersion in 12TET.
Lastly, I just mention that the more you focus on intonation, the worse it gets! So, my advice is to have a well-set-up guitar with some fresh strings, tune up as best you can and enjoy playing.
Mark Baxter, Brussels, January 2018 ©